foobar latency/stuttering

Headphoneus Supremus

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this is a mid end machine. it never goes above 15% cpu surfing the web and playing foobar streaming. it will not let me set it above 2000ms. it gives me an ussupported error. for instance, head-fi makes it stutter real bad when the front page loads. jriver can get by with 50ms but i wish to use foobar. what else can i do to keep it from stuttering while i surf?

Headphoneus Supremus

you are correct. no problem with ds,ks,asio. it is wasapi. i want to use wasapi. so if i cannot, i suppose i am looking at another media player. as much as i like foobar otherwise.

at least my modem problem is solved. i have been on the same stream 7 days! maybe i can just deal with a little stuttering. it only happens on pages that load slowely. not because of my bandwidth,because of the pages bandwidth, scripts etc.

Headphoneus Supremus

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now all of the sudden it is working all the time. ie9 crashes a sometimes but that is for a different forum. the only problem with foobar i had was when loading big pages with ie9. so i can't really say it was foobar. i have deployed ie9 on a number of machines and i do not find it completely stable on any of them. this machine is a i5 with 6gb and win 7 64.
so i suppose it is fine.

Headphoneus Supremus

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Seriously, with those specs you should have nothing short of stellar audio performance. Have you considered a different browser, one that doesn't root itself as deep as IE9 does? Do note I'm not bashing, just making a remark.

Also, power settings play a big part on audio performance, so you might want to tone them down or shut them off completely.

Headphoneus Supremus

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Foobar2000 going up to 15% CPU load is quite strange, I have a laptop with an i5-540 (dual core @ 2.53 Ghz) and foobar2000 never goes above 1% CPU load with no DSP used.
With SoX resampling to 96K at the highest possible quality, Isone (room simulation) running and a parametric EQ with 6-8 modifications all chained, I barely have CPU load of 2% with peak at 5%.

100+ Head-Fier

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foobar2000 stays at around 7-8% on my i3 @ 3.2GHz with two VST plugins (one of them very CPU hungry) during playback of highly compressed FLACs. uLilith uses around 6-7% with the same settings and RAM playback. They both drop to less than 1% without the VSTs running. I never get any stutter or drop outs.

I would definitely recommend switching to another browser, not only because of the stutter, then, if the issue persists, reading up on the DPC latency checker and diagnosing your problem this way. It's possible that, for example, upgrading or downgrading your LAN or video card drivers could fix the issue.
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Headphoneus Supremus

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sorry for the confusion. foobar never goes above 2% load. i meant if i am loading a heavy webpage with ie9 the browser can go up to 15% load for a few seconds. then it goes back down to like 2 or 3 percent. i am honestly afraid to use another browser because of security. i was told by someone who works for ms(of course) that the other browsers have security holes. being that he works for ms i don't know what to make of that. i will say, overall i am not at all happy with ie9. the other browsers stomp it in the "useability" department. can anyone say for sure if the other browsers are safe if one is using them for secure data? what i was told is once the lock is off someone that really knows what they are doing can get your personal info. if anyone is sure this is not true my problem is solved. which browser do folks here use? i did not mean to run my own thread off topic. it was however the browser that was messing up foobar so it is sort of on topic if you guys don't mind. btw, i have an i7-2600k with 16gb ram and ssd that crashes on ie9! that is uncalled for. if the browser needs that much power i am guessing it is written very poorly. i am just concerned about personal data.

edit: all power saving is off on anything except my laptops. nothing is wrong with any of these machines. the only problem i have on all of them is with ie9!

Headphoneus Supremus

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sorry for the confusion. foobar never goes above 2% load. i meant if i am loading a heavy webpage with ie9 the browser can go up to 15% load for a few seconds. then it goes back down to like 2 or 3 percent. i am honestly afraid to use another browser because of security. i was told by someone who works for ms(of course) that the other browsers have security holes. being that he works for ms i don't know what to make of that. i will say, overall i am not at all happy with ie9. the other browsers stomp it in the "useability" department. can anyone say for sure if the other browsers are safe if one is using them for secure data? what i was told is once the lock is off someone that really knows what they are doing can get your personal info. if anyone is sure this is not true my problem is solved. which browser do folks here use? i did not mean to run my own thread off topic. it was however the browser that was messing up foobar so it is sort of on topic if you guys don't mind. btw, i have an i7-2600k with 16gb ram and ssd that crashes on ie9! that is uncalled for. if the browser needs that much power i am guessing it is written very poorly. i am just concerned about personal data.

edit: all power saving is off on anything except my laptops. nothing is wrong with any of these machines. the only problem i have on all of them is with ie9!

Headphoneus Supremus

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Current security reports indicate that while MS has improved their 0-day security flaw fixing, they are still behind both Mozilla and Google.

Sensitive data should never be handled on Internet Explorer and Safari. Firefox and Chrome are your best bets. I personally use Firefox, upgraded from FF4 to FF5 as it was released today, and it's a very solid browser, and absolutely the most flexible browser currently available. It can even be further locked down with NoScript, FlashBlock and a few other addons and tweaks. Also, you should consider using adequate security software solutions with integrated sandboxing features or using external sandbox apps.

Browsers crashing is not tolerable, as it's indeed an indication of high bug number and/or poorly maintained system. In your particular case, it does feel like the culprit is indeed IE9, which I would recommend against, even before knowing of your issues.

Regarding power options, it's something that DJs usually have to take a very careful approach, as it has a very significant impact on latency, an essential feature for live acts and such. But this isn't relevant for your situation, I think.

Overall, IE9 is less secure and lower performing than the top browsers, Firefox and Chrome, but not unsecure like Safari. There is also a third contender, a browser named Opera, and some people do prefer it over the top browsers. Still, there aren't enough pros for me to recommend IE9 for any scenario. I personally recommend Firefox, Chrome is too intrusive regarding user patterns and personal data. If you're that much in doubt install those three and see which feels right, as some people just work better with specific browsers.

100+ Head-Fier

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I'm personally using Opera because of its high out-of-the-box functionality, configurability, and responsiveness. There is no 100% secure browser or system, but the most popular ones usually get targetted more frequently than others for obvious reasons. My advice is to try the main alternatives, namely Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and see which one you like best. None of them will be more secure than the other two in the long run, but you needn't worry about any of them being any less secure than IE. An MS employee telling you that only MS products are secure is not overly surprising.

100+ Head-Fier

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When you use WASAPI in foobar2000, it uses what is called "exclusive mode", where the API communicates almost directly with your sound hardware as opposed to the usual shared mode, where every sound is first mixed by the OS and then sent to your hardware. (That's why you can't hear other programs when you're using WASAPI in foobar2000)
I believe your problem lies exactly in the fact that you're communicating directly with your sound hardware. What is your sound-card/onboard chipset? Is the sound driver updated?